


Just A Grunt

by MeriKG



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brothers, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 07:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16488467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeriKG/pseuds/MeriKG
Summary: Sam sits in the bunker, contemplating Dean's reasons for wanting to undergo the Trials to close Hell himself.  Thoughts from Sam's POV plus a little Chuck cameo 'cause I'm meta that way.





	Just A Grunt

**Author's Note:**

> Season 8. Mostly cannon musings. This is my first SPN fic. I'm a prolific writer, so there's probably gonna be more stories to come if you like my style. I also ship Destiel, but that'll come later (see what I did there)? No beta, so don't hate on typos.

JUST A GRUNT

Sam sat back in the ancient chair the long-deceased Men of Letters had seemed to favor. There were dozens of them spread throughout the bunker. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, particularly for someone with as much leg as he sported, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing; research, even the fascinating stuff, became tedious after a while and it didn’t do to get too cozy while trying to sift through bone-dry material. 

But it wasn’t research shifting through what everyone knew to be a particularly agile mind. It was Dean. No surprise there. Sam shivered as a low-grade body shiver briefly filtered through his lean frame, as if someone had dumped a bucket of of ice water on his head in January, freezing him from head to toe on the way down. Just one of the charming prizes he’d won from completing from the first Trial. 

The sensation was common-place enough that he gave it little thought; the bitter chills would fade in a moment or two; and with big brother cum Super-Nanny away on a food run, Sam didn’t need to make an effort to hide it. 

Sam stared at the tumbler of well-aged scotch in his hand, the amber colour sparkling around ice cubes kept frozen by an antiquated refrigerating system he still hadn’t managed to establish the power source for. His eyes didn’t see the rich tawny shade reflected in his glass, nor the Escher-esque tilt to the bookshelves reflected through the 90 year old crystal piece of glassware.

No. His mind was deep in thought as he recalled a conversation held in a barn, the smell of horse and hay a sharp contrast to the fresh night air. At what point in their lives had his brother, his clever, fierce, brave older brother decided that he was so expendable? More importantly, how had Sam missed it? He was all too aware that his brother carried an unhealthy amount of personal disregard. 

Dean looked after him, protected him, though they both knew he could protect himself well enough. But Dean couldn’t help it; and Sam was sufficiently self-aware to know that he depended on the fact that his older brother always put him first. Always. Even when he’d been hopped up on oceans of demon blood, the end of days upon them, Dean still walked ahead of him into a hunt, trusting Sam to watch his back. 

Dean had amazing instinct. True, he wasn’t huge on the the studies and the research. His special brand of genius was of a different variety, more of a tactical nature then scholarly. Which didn’t make it any lesser then Sam’s sharp capacity for retention. Sam grinned to himself. He was the Merlin to Dean’s Arthur. The comparison fondly reminded him of the last time he’d seen his brother truly at play, painted barbarian-blue, hefting a well balanced foam-wrapped piece of PVC piping that the imaginative called a sword. 

Early into the case, Dean had been deep in conversation with him and Charlie, mind hard at work on their latest murders. A casual glance at the Queen of Moon’s war board had been enough for Dean to evaluate and modify her strategies to a much more successful battle campaign. Sam absently took a drink, thinking affectionately of their adopted sister. 

His older brother had the uncanny, and frankly envious ability to walk into any situation, analyze it, and own it. A room full of moody, violent hunters? He belonged among them, they knew it, and they’d follow him, sooner or later. Prison, FBI, police stations, they all recognized the leader in the room, and would follow his orders. Sam could do that too, but it would take longer, and he’d have to work for it. Think on exactly how to present himself and his case based on the personalities involved. He’d have to convince key players that his way was right. It was exhausting, and not his preference. 

Dean took over any situation as easily as breathing. Dean could walk into a room full of academics, and they may sneer behind his back at the roughneck, mouth-breathing soldier, but they’d follow his lead without fail the minute a hint of shit came within proximity to a fan.

That was Dean’s natural brand of intelligence. Like Sam, he was perfectly capable of doing the academic part, but he hated it, and it didn’t come easy for him. So they both assumed the roles based on their strengths, and were comfortable with that. They were a team. So when exactly did Dean decided his half of the equation was so much less valuable than Sam’s? 

Sam remembered how it began, or thought he did, anyway. They were teenagers, working together on a hunt. He wasn’t sure exactly what was said, but the men they were questioning were openly dismissive of simple, muscle brute Dean, choosing to speak with Sam about some complicated matter. Dean took in the situation, and, though he’d been the one to brief Sam on the historical details, played dumb and disinterested, the simple brawn to Sam’s brain. Sam had played along, and the men had summarily dismissed Dean. Their mistake. He’d been reading them the whole time of course, and they let slip a number of vital little facts when it was just Dean among them. Candy from a baby.

The strategy worked like a magic charm, and it became a part of their regular playbook. The polar opposite to one of their favorite battle standards; Dean standing front and center, distracting whatever monster they chased so Sam could come in behind them for the kill. That playing 'bait' was the riskier role didn’t matter; Dean trusted Sam to successfully make the kill, and Sam thrived on Dean’s faith in him. But then Dean had raised him, and Dean responded to their father’s approval the same way. So Sam supposed the whole thing made a kind of sense for their hot mess of a family. 

Ah, yes. Family. Even with their grandfather, Dean had chosen to play the dumber brother. The more insults Henry through their way about ape-hunters, the dumber Dean had acted. Sam wasn’t sure exactly why, at the time he'd just been annoyed with his big brother’s attitude, but he’d played along just the same. Maybe he shouldn’t have. Maybe it mattered that their grandfather understood that Dean wasn’t the idiot hunter he chosen to portray. Dean probably enjoyed it, screwing with Henry that way. Sam had thought so at the time. And that had definitely been part of it, but maybe Dean also agreed a little. Sam sighed to himself; he shouldn’t have let that one slide by unaddressed. His fault. 

Sam absently took a drink of scotch, pausing his thoughts to welcome the way the warm rush of heat banished the remainder of the chills from his bones. His muscles still ached of course, but that pain was a minor thing, the dull throbbing so much a part of him that he barely noticed it anymore. Sam tried very hard not to think about what the next Trial would add to the mix; a big part of him was in no hurry for their little Prophet to decipher the next step in the master plan. It wasn’t likely to be pleasant.

So he worried about Dean instead. At least that was familiar territory. Sam meant what he’d said back at the Hellhound hunt; Dean was a genius. And somehow Sam had spectacularly dropped the ball if he’d let his big brother sink so low that he forgot that. Sam just hadn’t noticed. Dean said dumb things, made foolish jokes all them time. Sam gave him shit for it. That was their thing. One of their things, anyway. They had a lot of things. 

Was some of this his fault? Had he somehow forgotten that Dean had an agile mind and fierce wit hidden behind the cartoon porn and star wars quotes? Sam winced, recalling at least several times when Dean would say something intelligent, or reference books or historical facts and he’d openly expressed his surprise. Maybe he was more complicit in Dean’s inferiority complex then he was completely comfortable with.

\-----Voiceover begins, with faint sounds of keys being typed--------

Sam was partially right, of course. He had bought into Dean’s dumb soldier persona, at least to some extent. And if Sam believed Dean was the dumb one, well, Dean saw no reason to think otherwise. 

But if you asked Dean where it all started, and for some freakish reason he thought it through and, even more shockingly, provided an honest answer, it’d go back much farther then 17 and 21 year old Winchester brothers on a hunt, where he’d discovered the advantage to playing grunt. No, he’d learned that there were advantages to that stunt much, much earlier in their lives.

Flash back a few decades, to yet another crappy motel. Eight-year-old Sam worked on homework, they were actually in school at the moment. Their father sat at an off yellow, rickety plastic table pouring over a map. Twelve-year-old Dean sat on the far bed, cloth spread out before him as he meticulously field stripped and cleaned his father’s guns. 

Their father talked while he worked, explaining what he was looking for, and why. Training the next generation how to work a trail. How to survive, and to keep other people that way. It was all John had, really. He knew he was a mess, but so was the world. And it was up to his family to fix as much of it as they could. So he hunted. He hunted for vengeance, for the things that went bump in the night. His sons would not be unarmed victims to another yellow-eyed freak. 

He asked his kids a complicated geographical question, testing their knowledge. Dean dropped his oilcloth, face scrunched up in thought. From the couch, little Sammy called out the answer without looking up from his math problems. Dean glanced over at his father. And the look on John’s face. Such pride. 

“Very good, Sammy. That was some quick thinking,” John complimented, voice warm and encouraging.

And Sammy had beamed so brightly, basking in their father’s approval. He’d been so happy. Dean couldn’t help but smile at his brother. “Yea, quick thinking, ya bookworm,” he called out from his side of the room. The bratty words didn’t match his gently teasing tone. Sammy stuck his tongue out as his brother, but he knew a compliment when he heard one.

The next time a big question came up, Dean knew the answer right off. But this time when he didn’t immediately answer it was deliberate. No, he chose to keep quiet and let his little brother answer it. He’d shot all his targets in center mass that morning; he’d shown his dad how good he was. And right now, seeing Sam happy, and his father openly praising his little brother was more important than blurting out some dumb coordinates. He could answer first the next time. 

But he didn’t. 

 

\-------------------- Omniscient voice fades away--------- 

 

Sam gulped the remainder of the whisky, cocking his head as he heard the familiar sound of the Bunker door opening and Dean’s typical ‘Honey, I’m home,’ reverberate down the stairwell in his rumbly voice. Sam stood, pausing to stretch the ache from his muscles, lanky arms pulled high over his head, before heading to the kitchen to help Dean put the bags of food away. He’d just have to be more aware of his own words and actions in the future. He would fix this. 

Dean wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t just a grunt. And he definitely wasn’t expendable.


End file.
